TPKM/365
WTO/TBT
TW Taiwan
  • 65 - Agriculture
2019-04-30
2019-03-04

Organic agricultural products

Regulations for Approving and Supervising Organic Accreditation Bodies

The Organic Agriculture Promotion Act was promulgated on 30 May 2018 and will enter into effect on 30 May 2019. In accordance with Paragraph 5 of Article 11 of the Act, the "Regulations Governing the Approval and Management of Accreditation Bodies for Organic Agricultural Products" was drafted to stipulate provisions for the approval and supervision of accreditation bodies, information to be listed in the approval document, etc. The proposed text took into account current experiences of implementing production and certification of organic agricultural products as well as practices adopted in developed countries. The draft contains 19 Articles, which are summarized as follows:

1.    Description of Terms. (Article 2)

2.    Qualification of accreditation bodies, application procedures for approval and documents to be submitted. (Articles 3 and 4)

3.    Information to be listed in the approval document, procedures for making changes to and extending the validity period of the approval document, as well as the obligations for reporting changes made to internal documents submitted along with the approval application. (Articles 5 to 7)

4.    Information to be listed in the accreditation certificates, the validity period of accreditation certificates and management/supervision of accredited certification bodies. (Articles 8 to 11)

5.    Requirements for adding or reducing accreditation scope and withdrawal of accreditation status for accredited certification bodies. (Articles 12 to 14)

6.    Retention period of documents relating to accreditation activities (Article 15).

7.    Submission of annual reports by accreditation bodies, disclosure of accreditation activities and management/supervision of accreditation bodies as well as accredited certification bodies. (Articles 16-18) 

8.    Date of entry into force: 30 March 2019. (Article 19)